Last Sunday we rode the motorcycle to Las Vegas and it has taken all week for my butt to “feel” again. Seriously, I recovered quite well but in my zeal to write about the experience of spending 12 hours on the back of a motorcycle, I neglected to write about the journey. We chose to take a less traveled route to Vegas, one with more scenery and one that required very little riding on the freeway.

From here we rode along Highway 62 through Morongo and Yucca Valleys, past Joshua Tree National Park and alongside the Sheep Hole Mountains. I am not sure of the name of the highway, it wasn’t a major one, but we spent much of our time passing through various parts of the Mojave Desert and the Mojave National Preserve. There we passed several dry lakes, some salt flats and fields of lava rock spewed from a now long dead volcano. Actually, it was at that point when we stopped to take some pictures and remove some of our layers of clothing that the bike stalled. Just as it did, a car full of ladies also stopped for a photograph on their way to visit a friend in Bullhead City. It seems they make the trip very often and have never stopped but today one of them insisted they do so she could photograph the volcano! What timing! They were gracious enough to give us a boost.

Once the bike was going again, we continued to Las Vegas, stopping once for gas (where they ripped all customers off by charging a whole $1.00 more per gallon of gas than 25 miles away in Vegas!) before getting on the I-15. On our return trip, we took a different route, also avoiding the interstate but because it was getting dark, there wasn’t much to see and picture taking was out of the question.